The Blessing: Giving the Gift of Unconditional Love and Acceptance

© 2019 John Trent and Kari Trent Stageberg

© 1986, 1993, 2011 Gary Smalley and John Trent

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978-0-7852-2905-6 (TP)

978-0-7852-2597-3 (eBook)

Epub Edition April 2019 9780785225973

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Trent, John, 1952–

The blessing: giving the gift of unconditional love and acceptance / John Trent and Gary Smalley. — Rev. and updated by John Trent.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-8499-4637-0 (trade paper)

1. Families—Religious life. 2. Child rearing—Religious aspects—Christianity. 3. Blessing and cursing. I. Smalley, Gary. II. Title.

BV4526.3.T74 2011

248.8’45—dc22 2011004971

Printed in the United States of America

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Contents

A New Edition . . . with Grateful Thanks

Part 1: Understanding the Blessing

Chapter 1: The Importance of Asking Why

Chapter 2: Celebrating with Your Blessing Team

Chapter 3: The Lifelong Search for the Blessing

Chapter 4: Bless Me—Me Also, O My Father!

Chapter 5: A Life-and-Death Choice

Part 2: The Five Elements of the Blessing

Chapter 6: Our First Look at the Five Elements of the Blessing

Chapter 7: The First Element: Appropriate Meaningful Touch

Chapter 8: The Second Element: A Spoken or Written Message

Chapter 9: The Third Element: Attaching High Value

Chapter 10: The Fourth Element: Picturing a Special Future

Chapter 11: The Fifth Element: An Active, Genuine Commitment

Chapter 12: First Steps: A Written Blessing

Part 3: Living the Blessing

Chapter 13: Your Blessing

Chapter 14: Blessing Your Kids and Grandkids

Chapter 15: Blessing Your Spouse

Chapter 16: Blessing When You’re Single

Chapter 17: Blessing Your Parents

Part 4: Turning Hurt into the Blessing

Chapter 18: Blessing Others, Even When It Hurts

Chapter 19: I’ve Blessed Them, and It’s Not Working

Chapter 20: What If I Didn’t Get the Blessing?

Chapter 21: Your Next Step Is Living the Blessing

Notes

About the Authors

A New Edition . . . with Grateful Thanks

As you get ready to dive into this new edition of the book and experience, let me start out by thanking my patient, loving wife, Cindy, for being such a huge help as always in supporting every word I write. By the time this book comes out, we will have been married forty years. What a blessing God has given me every day, year, and decade.

In addition, you’ll notice there are three names on this new edition of the book. I’m honored to have and to keep Gary Smalley’s name on the cover. Gary was my friend of friends who worked with me to write the first edition of The Blessing. He was someone who lived out the Blessing so wisely and well with his own family first and then with others. It amazes me, as I write this, that it has been close to three years since Gary went to be with the Lord. You’ll still hear some of his insights and stories in this book, and you’ll hear from another author in this edition as well.

Kari Trent Stageberg is a new name on the cover. She is my and Cindy’s oldest daughter. Kari is an amazing writer, wife, sister, daughter, and person. With her name on this book, it launches a new generation of Trents writing and teaching about the Blessing. She also has an incredible heart for those who have missed the Blessing. As part of what we do at StrongFamilies.com, she teaches seminars, trains leaders, and has helped many women who have experienced—or are currently experiencing—abuse regain and reclaim the Blessing in their lives.

Kari runs StrongFamilies.com with me and is outstanding at helping people take information and turn it into action. Because there have been so many people asking us, How do I do this? she’s written a whole new section of this book (part 3) and created content online at TheBlessing.com that will give you ideas on how to apply the Blessing to specific areas of your life. Look for her words here, in future books, on our podcast, and online at our website to find support and materials to both help you heal and live out the Blessing.

I’m so grateful for two other crucial teammates at Strong Families for their help with this new edition. Dr. Tony Wheeler leads our Institute for the Blessing at StrongFamilies.com. Kari and I are honored to have Tony’s amazing insights into helping people put down their facades and self-protection so they can embrace the freedom and life Jesus offers us—freeing them to bless! Tony and I are working on a book right now that numerous people have asked us for years to write. It will be called The Blessing Cry, and it is filled with hope and help specifically for those who have missed the Blessing. If that’s your experience (as it was for both Dr. Wheeler and me), look for help and hope from Dr. Wheeler, along with Kari and myself, right now at TheBlessing.com and soon in that new book.

And special thanks goes out to Brooke Brown as well. Brooke fills out our leadership team at StrongFamilies.com. Brooke is brilliant and as courageous, observant, and caring a person as I have ever met. She won the Walter Cronkite Outstanding Undergraduate Award for Excellence in Journalism for being the top journalism student at Arizona State University the year she graduated. (And she gave the student speaker address at graduation!) Brooke has written her own story in a wonderful book called The Little Butterfly Girl, which you can find in our store at StrongFamilies.com, at TheBlessing.com, or at major online bookstores. She is simply outstanding at helping people capture their life stories—as well as capture and share their Blessing stories. On our website, you’ll find some of the writing and training videos she’s done to help you capture your own Blessing story. You’ll also hear from her in this book, in a special chapter on how we can bless others even when we’re in pain ourselves.

There are so many others to thank, from the board at our ministry that runs StrongFamilies.com and TheBlessing.com, to the students I get to teach who keep helping us learn new things so that we can better apply our message to a new generation.

But without our wonderful editor and friend Debbie Wickwire’s patience and perseverance, and her belief in The Blessing’s importance for a new generation, this edition would never have happened. Thank you, Debbie.

May every minute you spend in these pages and in processing what you learn here and in your Blessing Group bring you closer to the source of blessing than ever before. I pray all this for you as you learn to love more like Jesus, and like him, lead and change lives when you do.

—JOHN TRENT, PHD

PRESIDENT, STRONGFAMILIES.COM

Part 1

Understanding the Blessing

Chapter 1

The Importance of Asking Why

Why does that deep ache of loneliness keep showing up in my life—even after my happiest moments or at the end of my biggest accomplishments? Why do I doubt whether I was really loved and cared for growing up, even though I didn’t lack for any physical thing? Or perhaps you wonder, Why do I try so hard to experience close, caring relationships and yet so often feel that the very thing I long for stays just out of reach?

Have you ever been haunted by some version of that incredibly difficult question—why?

Simon Sinek is an outstanding speaker and thinker. Take a look at his TED talk on the golden circle. It’s a metaphor for what is most important to a leader, a coach, or anyone trying to figure out relationships—or even how to sell things. At the center of his talk, and the circle that he draws, is the word why.¹ Because it’s so important.

I believe that is the reason this book has continued to be of help and encouragement to so many people. Because in the incredibly powerful biblical concept of the Blessing comes the answer for so many people about their deepest need from their most important earthly relationships, an answer to their why?

The Day I Found My Why? in the Word Blessing

It was several years ago that I experienced what was to me a God-inspired, profound discovery in regard to my own why? question. For me, it happened in a span of less than twenty-four hours, twelve of which I spent sitting with someone on suicide watch at a psychiatric hospital, where I was an intern.

My shift had ended. I remember walking out of the hospital that evening, wishing I could have been of more help to that very troubled young man and his why? I’d given him all the help and encouragement I could, but I didn’t have a clear picture to show him. His why? had pushed him to the very brink of a life-and-death choice.

Little did I know that when I got home that night and opened my Bible to Genesis 27 I’d run right into the story of another young man like the one I’d been sitting beside all day. Another person who was beyond heartbroken. In fact, we’re told, He cried with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, ‘Bless me—me also, O my father!’ . . . ‘Have you not reserved a blessing for me?’ . . . And Esau lifted up his voice and wept (Gen. 27:34, 36, 38).

I had read about Jacob and Esau probably a hundred times. The story of one brother getting his father’s blessing—and of the other being tricked out of it. But all of a sudden, as I sat in my study, it was like Almighty God opened my eyes and the scales fell off. Now I had a name for that incredible longing I’d been listening to, that I’d seen in that hurting young man at the psychiatric hospital.

He had missed the Blessing. Whatever that was.

But without even knowing all that there was to Esau’s cry right then, it was like a light turned on in my own mind and heart. That blessing, even though I didn’t fully understand it, was something I knew I had longed for all my life with my own father, who had left our home when I was two months old. The story in Genesis 27 gave me the answer to that why? I was still struggling with in my own life. It painted a picture of my why? and gave me insight that could bring incredible help to many people I’d worked with. Not just at the hospital, but everyday people: friends and relatives. My own wife, who at that time had never gotten the Blessing from her father. And, certainly, those I worked with and counseled.

The thoughts Why didn’t you (or won’t you) give me your blessing? and even Why is it so important to make sure we give others the Blessing? sprang to my mind.

That very night, I started digging into Scripture to find the return address for Esau’s crushing cry of emotional pain and separation—one that so many of us have echoed in our own lives. The first verse I came to that helped explain it to me wasn’t far from that Genesis passage. The book of Deuteronomy records a time the Lord called the entire nation of Israel together and set before them something that was nothing less than a life-and-death choice—a choice that is set before us as well.

I call heaven and earth to witness that I have set before you a choice. Life or death. The blessing or the curse. So choose life. You and your descendants (Deut. 30:19, author’s paraphrase).

That’s where I began to see the double-sided choice that the Lord himself had set before his people, just before they headed into the promised land. There was a choice: Life over death. Blessing over curse. One choice, with two parts, that we’ll dig into throughout this book.

The Blessing originated in God giving us life and his blessing. But the deeper I dived into Scripture, the more I realized we also have a choice either to bless others or to withhold the Blessing from them! This choice begins with our children and our spouses, and then extends to those around us.

The apostle Peter, one of Jesus’ closest friends and disciples, wrote of Christ’s suffering and how his love freed us. At one point, he wrote, Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing (1 Peter 3:9 NIV).

In short, to be a person of blessing is our calling.

Listen to the way Eugene Peterson in his eminently readable paraphrase, The Message, translates these same verses: No retaliation. No sharp-tongued sarcasm. Instead, bless—that’s your job, to bless. You’ll be a blessing and also get a blessing.

Think about that for a moment.

That’s your job, to bless.

You may have sworn that it was to be a heavy-equipment operator or homemaker or policewoman or nurse practitioner or computer coder or teacher. No, your primary job is to bless. It’s your calling. And in doing so, you’ll see the Blessing comes back from God himself and pours out all over you.

Welcome to a book that, amazingly enough, is in its fourth revision and already in the hands of nearly two million people. This book is going to call you, equip you, encourage you, and cheer you on to do your job—starting at home with your spouse, your children, and your grandchildren. But then also with those at work. With those you minister to. With those you serve with, go on shifts with, go to church with, deploy overseas with, do life with.

Kari and I get to lay before you and a whole new generation of parents and couples, single parents and grandparents, students and professors, that amazing, life-giving choice. A choice that does not only affect the quality of others’ lives but can impact how we do life and even our ultimate end.

Key Benefits to this Edition

Though the core message of this book remains the same, there are three ways this new edition can be of huge help to you in your life and in the lives of those around you.

1. It pulls back the curtain on those huge why? questions.

As we’ve seen, why? questions can ruin relationships and make our hearts sick. Why did it hurt and impact my life so much when my father bailed out on our family when I was an infant, even when I knew nothing about him growing up? Why am I so tripped up by a mother who kept her acceptance just out of reach, putting me on track to feel as if I still have to be perfect or overachieve? Why do I struggle, in my heart of hearts, to really believe that a heavenly Father loves and cares for me—even that Jesus’ love can really transform and embrace me as it seems to do with others?

In this new edition, Kari and I will explain the whats and hows that can help you experience, give, and live the Blessing. But our biggest prayer for you is that you would be able to begin answering the whys in your own life. We want to give you clarity on why you need to give the Blessing to others, and why it’s so transformational to live out the Blessing before a world and culture filled with people who are desperate for rest and peace for their souls.

Why? is not a minor question. In fact, we’d say it is more of an interrobang question. If you haven’t heard that word before, that’s certainly understandable. That’s because it refers to a key that used to be on typewriters years ago: ?!. While it’s been used in several written languages, in English the interrobang is intended to combine the functions of both a question mark and an exclamation point. It signals that the question it’s attached to is hugely important, and the symbol is known in printers’ and programmers’ jargon as a bang.

We believe it’s a huge deal for you to get to the bottom of your why? question, so get ready for a bang as you dig into this book.

2. It answers the question How do I live the Blessing as a lifestyle and not just a one-and-done thing?

Kari and I, along with our wonderful teammates at StrongFamilies.com, have taught this concept of the Blessing as a lifestyle to thousands of people across the country.² Over the past several years many have asked for more specifics on how to go beyond simply giving the Blessing once as a one-and-done kind of thing.

It’s certainly better to give or receive the Blessing once instead of never. For example, I sat with my father for eight and a half hours in a small hospice room on the day he died. He was dying of congestive heart and lung failure—a terrible way to die. I held his hand during the tough, horrible coughing parts. I told him I loved him. I got him water. I tried to help him get comfortable as much as I could. I prayed for him—and had him cuss at me for praying for him.

When my father breathed his last at 4:43 p.m. on an incredibly hot August afternoon in Phoenix, like Esau, I lifted up my voice and wept when I knew that—with my father—I would never get his blessing. I would have loved, on that last day with him, even just once before he was gone, to have received his blessing.

I’ve received many letters and e-mails over the years from people who have had a loved one who, just once, gave them the Blessing. They’ve shared how incredibly important that one time was to them. That’s awesome. I cheer with them. I’m incredibly grateful for whatever it was in that person that caused him or her to wake up and realize how important even one time of sharing the Blessing can be in a loved one’s life.

But one-and-done was never how we were meant to give the Blessing. While getting the Blessing once is much better than just wishing we had the answer to that fill-in-the-blank in our hearts that was left empty, what we’re called to is what the apostle Peter revealed: blessing others is our job.

We are called to get to work creating a culture of the Blessing in our lives, homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods. In a fallen, angry, incredibly broken world, our job is to be a people of blessing. Talk about standing out! Be a person of blessing.

You may only see someone once—like when you’re on the road and that barista in the drive-through hands you your Americano. In this book you’ll absolutely learn how to bless people once. However, the Blessing is meant to be a lifestyle practiced with the people we live with, as a clear way to love like Jesus. For it is because of Jesus’ love for us that the DNA of the Blessing can be woven into the very fabric of our everyday lives.

3. It helps you dig deeper, process, and experience the concepts of the Blessing.

Processing concepts through self-reflection and journaling helps you understand and internalize information better. That’s why this new edition of the book also includes questions at the end of nearly every chapter. They will call you to dig deeper, to consider your own life and experiences as they relate to the Blessing. Look for the Pictures Your Heart Remembers sections, and even if you’re tempted, don’t skip them.

And there’s one more major reason this new version of the book can mean so much to you.

It’s the difference between celebrating by yourself—or experiencing the multiplied joy of running onto the field to celebrate with your team.

Chapter 2

Celebrating with Your Blessing Team

We’ve already mentioned that giving the Blessing to others is our God-given job. We believe this book will challenge, equip, and motivate you to do that well. And we’ve listed three objectives—from answering those huge whys in our lives, to creating a culture of the Blessing instead of a one-and-done experience, to processing the material in this book at a deeper level—that distinguish this edition of The Blessing.

But there’s something else that this edition is built around that we believe is incredibly powerful for retaining this concept—seeing it take root in your life and in the lives of those you bless. It has to do with whether you celebrate solo or with your own team.

Celebrating Alone or with Your Blessing Team

Baz Gray is a former British Royal Marine. Simply put, he is as tough as they come. In fact, he became the first person to complete a 745-mile solo trek to the South Pole. In conditions that he described as absolutely horrendous, the unusually heavy snow he faced made this the toughest period of his life. Gray had to eat 10,000 calories each day simply to maintain enough energy to keep going the average of nineteen miles he fought to cover each day. Which meant he was dragging a 187-pound sled all those hundreds of miles, loaded with his food, bedding, and equipment, to reach his goal.

Finally, thirty-nine days after he began, at 19:00 GMT on Sunday, January 6, 2019, he finished what no other individual had done before. And he got to celebrate reaching the South Pole . . . alone.¹ Which doesn’t lessen at all what he did. But think of that solo celebration—and of the celebration of having shared those grueling hours with a team who could now celebrate that achievement together. The hugging and high-fiving. The sharing of joys, the lifelong memories of shared experiences in making the trek together.

Let’s make it clear that reading this book is nowhere near as hard as trekking across arctic wastelands dragging almost two hundred pounds behind you! But you’re starting an important journey. It can be incredibly fulfilling and tremendously worth celebrating to read this book alone. You can still gain so much emotional and relational ground if you decide to skip this chapter and go on to the core content of what the Blessing is and how we can live it out.

But we would ask you to consider something else.

In all the years we’ve taught and helped others learn about living and giving the Blessing, it is so often the people who share and celebrate with a group who turn these concepts into life-changing gifts and realities in their most important relationships. They don’t just get to their destination or goals quicker. They do so in a way that changes their lives through the process of being in a community of people. We were made for relationships.

So we set before you a challenge.

You can do this book as a solo trek. But we’d ask that you make this journey with